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Andorin writes "An independently filmed adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, called The Hero Of Time, has been taken offline by Nintendo as of the end of December. The film's producers write: 'We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film... We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself — even from fan-works with good intentions.' Filming for the feature-length, non-profit film began in August 2004 and the movie was completed in 2008. It premiered in various theaters worldwide, including in New York and Los Angeles, and then became available online in the middle of December, before it was targeted by Nintendo's legal team. As both an avid Zelda fan and an appreciator of independent works, I was extremely disappointed in Nintendo's strong-arming of a noncommercial adaptation to the Game of the Year for 1999."

Fan projects like this only help to keep the IP in people's minds, effectively generated free promotion.

Anyone recall the early days of the internet when Fox and Lucas were threatening to sue all the X-Files and Star Wars fan pages on the internet in order to protect their trademarks? At some point they decided it was too hard to fight, and that fan pages weren't a threat to their trademarks. So why are fan movies different?

If the Myst movie had fucked up the Myst story, Cyan would not have loved it.

That's basically what happened here, fan makes game movie, game creator hates what fan movie does to his characters, game company kills game movie.

Zelda is Zelda because of the creative power behind it, and what the fans did didn't jive with the creative power behind Zelda. Ergo, Zelda fan movie was not disirable as it would screw up the future stories.

Guess I should have read the smaller print in bad font claiming they intended to turn no profit from it.... either way I think getting permission at the beginning probably would've been their best bet.

I'm not one usually to reference YTNMD on/., but this [ytmnd.com] is appropriate.

However, if you look at the whole issue from a broader perspective, you begin to wonder if this sort of thing isn't deliberate, by which I mean people must understand the Streisand Effect by now and maybe people are trying to exploit it. The first thought of a lot of people on the internet when they hear 'x is being banned/censored/removed' is 'wow, I need to both satisfy my curiosity AND stick it to The Man!' Maybe some companies are

I think it was Edmund Burke who pointed out that "It isn't always wise to do what you have a right to do". However, the common law legal system doesn't operate that way. It tends to assume that it you don't exercise your rights, you implicitly abandon them.

This is what makes companies take legal action in such cases, even if they might have sympathy for the project itself. If they do not, it might be used as a precedent next time, when somebody has a project that is less beneficial to Nintendo.

What happens if fan-art popularizes counter-culture versions of the IP characters, like Zelda and Link doing cocaine or joining in orgies? It's true that fan art is for the most part supportive of the original artist's direction, much like the amateur film in question, but without any control over which derivative works are allowed, the integrity of the game character could be obliterated. Even something as mild as suggesting Link is gay, while not inherently or morally negative, could hurt the image and

Yeah, Nintendo have to protect them? No, they could license it for free and it would not dilute their ownership of trademarks. It's bollocks - like when companies say "unfortunately we can't fix your product for free". It's not unfortunate - it's a result of their policy, which they could change whenever they felt like it.

It's typically some low-level drone on the other end of the phone line that's saying "unfortunately". I think they really do empathize with you in that respect. I've had calls relating to service like this in my life where the dude says (in not so many words) "Dude, I wish I could help you, but it's against the stupid rules we have and I can't afford to get my ass shitcanned."

Losing a handful of fan filmmakers wouldn't make much of a dent in Nintendo's sales. But I doubt that the fan film hurts Nintendo any either. The problem is that the fans put a lot of work into something which they don't have permission to use the trademarks.

You clearly don't understand a thing about culture. Taken to its logical conclusion your position would stop all creative work dead in its tracks because nothing exists in a vacuum - nothing is created completely from scratch. James Campbell pointed out that there are probably less than five stories in all of human history, we just keep telling them over and over again with slight variations, and most of those are just retellings of one specific story, the monomyth.

Exactly. I had never even heard of this movie before Nintendo's legal action made this a newsworthy story. This free publicity will actually ensure that MORE people become aware of the movie and see it. So, if that was Nintendo's true purpose, then this didn't really accomplish anything. The film producer's won't make any profit off of bittorrent downloads, so if Nintendo's goals was to prevent people from profitting off of their Intellectual Property, than this may accomplish that.

We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself -- even from fan-works with good intentions.

It's bad enough Nintendo shut them down. Forcing them to put out a "mea culpa" statement like this (no doubt with hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars of lawsuits promised if they did not) is absolutely disgusting. Even if they did manage to put

While it's always possible it was something else, I think it's by far the most reasonable explanation for the given text. Why else would they write in legalese repeating what looks like what would be the Nintendo party line?

I didn't see anything about regret. All I saw was "Yeah, they have a legal or financial need to protect their brand, so they had to take us down". Why would you even think that their statement was coerced? Sure, they were forced to take it down to avoid big lawsuits, but that's not what you said. You said "Forcing them to put out a "mea culpa" statement like this (no doubt with hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars of lawsuits promised if they did not) is absolutely disgusting." Again, what

I can see how it's mechanically like the Streisand Effect -- try to silence something, end up drawing more attention to it. But the reason for the suppression isn't that the thing being taken down is embarrassing or otherwise damaging to them, so the consequence seems... inconsequential.

I also doubt it's deliberate. They probably just don't care. More people downloading the movie from torrent sites is less important than them throwing their legal weight around. The only downside is how we feel about the

It never occurs to him at any point along the way to ask Nintendo for their permission and support. It comes as a surprise when the rights holder pulls the plug.

I get what your saying but...c'mon. Artists shouldn't have to ask permission to do their work.

This happened because trademark law says companies are required to defend their TM or lose them.The rise of the global DNS makes (word) trademark law obsolete however it will probably take at least anothercentury before governments figure this out.

In the meantime, the creators of this should rename their word to the Legend of Velda, to avoid the legalhassles.

until you find out someone in a village in southern Missouri 140 years ago wrote a song that shares at least 3 main phrases with your most recent hit. You never heard that song, you used your talent to create your own, so what if the old one is different?

I get what your saying but...c'mon. Artists shouldn't have to ask permission to do their work.

Unless their work is a derivative work of someone else's work, then they probably should. And I mean, it's not like we're talking about some light-gray area like a two second sample of a song, or a story that is clearly directly inspired (read: ripping off) another. It's a movie about the Legend of Zelda.

Maybe in my perfect world they wouldn't need permission, but also in that world it would be polite to ask. In

I get what your saying but...c'mon. Artists shouldn't have to ask permission to do their work.

They're not doing THEIR work, they're adapting SOMEONE ELSE's work. And it's not like Nintendo is abusing a copyright that should have long-since expired by now, either... they're perfectly within their legal and moral right in this case.

If they wanted to make a fantasy movie, and more power to them, they could have made an *original* one, making it an original work. Then I might be able to respect the film.

But the obvious point that you're missing is that this is not creative, nor is it innovative.

Have you even watched the movie? Or are you just assuming it's a cut-and-paste of Ocarina of Time in movie form? The plot of THOT is not all that similar to OoT's. The basic idea is the same- Ganondorf gaining the Triforce of Power, and Link and Zelda working to stop him- but aside from that, they made a lot of changes, some minor and some not-so-minor, to the storyline. It's almost its own Zelda story. Because of

The fan spends four years in production. The film is screened in New York and L.A.

Sounds like they did it about exactly right. They finished the film, had it shown in at least two major cities, had it up for online distribution for a month, and now there's a story about it in one of the best places to advertise.

So you REALLY think they should have tried to approach a company as large as Nintendo and alert them to the fact they're trying to make a movie that would make Nintendo essentially zero dollars and Nintendo would have zero input on? It might have worked, but I wouldn't bet on it. It would be tough enough to just get an ANSWER from them. The most likely scenario is you'd get a letter from legal telling you how they'll sue you if you release the movie. Why bait the sharks?

Nintendo conspiracy, they see the movie, they like it, and then they get it taken down claiming trademark blabbity blah. They have... something? to gain from it. I don't know. There's lots of angles that could be worked here.

Filmmaker's conspiracy, they know it's not kosher to make this movie. They also know that Nintendo has a brand image to uphold and while they will threaten litigation, they won't really bring down the hammer too hard because it would tarnish their

I'm not sure why Nintendo would want to do this - it's only a negative for them, spreading all this ill will. Look at Star Trek and Star Wars. Lucasfilm and Paramount generally don't "crack down" on fan films or most other fan works, as long as they're nonprofit ventures. And fan films are more comparable to Lucasfilm and Paramount products. Nintendo primarily sells interactive products, so a noninteractive fan film would not be in direct competition with well, anything they sell. That is, unless they decide to develop a full length Zelda film. Remember how well Super Mario Bros. [wikipedia.org] turned out?

Rename it to Legend of Grizelda, parody the character names and rerelease it as a parody.Joke em if they cant take a F**k! The gall! Screw with your fanbase and lose your old friends like Metallica.I bet they woulda ate poo if the takedown lawyers told em to. Damn, question authority even if it is as silly and insignificant as a video game company.If no one gets feisty, this will get as bad as the stinkin NFL and their fans art. At least they can always watch hockey instead of pansy pad football.

Whether Nintendo is right or wrong, all of the heartbreak could have been prevented in advance of all that work if the makers of the movie had done one simple thing first...ask permission. Of course, I'm also smart enough to know why they didn't do that...they knew they probably wouldn't get it.

Whereas Nintendo was protecting their franchise with the release of the CD-i rapes of Zelda. I'm sure whatever the amateur fans made couldn't have been as bad.

The CD-i Zelda games weren't made by Nintendo, but were apparently made by Philips to exploit a loop-hole in Nintendo's contract with Philips for the SNES CD-ROM addon. Even though said addon never came out.

Nintendo has always been stalwart when it comes to protecting their copyrights. Nintendo has a long history of comments about fair use, personal backups, and so forth that might even make Ken Kutaragi, Mr. "PS3 gamers should get a second job" [joystiq.com], laugh out loud. Their actions are usually quite in line with their statements.

But, something I have never heard about, despite trawling some of the darkest parts of the internet, is Nintendo going after creators of porn based on Nintendo IP. This has always confused me--I'm not really for nor against them going after the artists, but considering the potential harm they might do to Nintendo's brand, you'd think it would be of a higher priority. Even more astounding, at least to me, is that as far as I can tell THOT was being given away for free, while there are plenty of toon porn sites out there that charge for their content (though piracy often slips around this). I would think it almost a no-brainer for Nintendo to go after the commercial sites and more popular/notorious artists to scare off the little guys. And, yet, I've never heard of a single case or even a C&D.

In fact, I've never heard of any company acting upon toon porn (and any cosplay porn that may exist.) Why is this? Are they somehow not aware it exists? Rule 34 is a popular enough concept at this point that I would think the idea would have at least entered their head from somewhere. Are they scared of bringing the world of drawn pornography to the limelight? After an Iowa man was thrown in jail for kiddie toon porn [animenewsnetwork.com] ("shota yaoi"), Nintendo (and other similar companies) could get even more help from the FBI and local police forces (looking to make a name for themselves) going after the artists of any underaged characters. Nintendo obviously isn't going just for profit makers (Neither is Disney [snopes.com]), so their lack of action in this regard leaves me scratching my head...Oh, and, uh, boo copyright, overzealous corporations, fish, fish, etc.

You draw a picture of Barney Rubble banging a dinosaur, some Internet dwellers are going to see it as sexy, but the majority of people (including, say, a judge) are going to interpret it as a joke. A sick joke, but a joke, and thus protected as parody.

I cant believe I'm saying this about George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but perhaps Nintendo would have been better served to take a lesson from them and embrace this fan production for what it is an homage to a great franchise? Anyone remember the fan made "remake" of Raiders of the Lost Ark? They could have even gone so far as to sponsor it, offer it as a download on the Wii or a bonus feature on the next Zelda game, instead all they managed to do was alienate some of the very fans they rely on for thei

Does anyone else find it interesting that this movie can open in theaters worldwide, and in major American markets like Los Angeles and New York, without a peep from Nintendo, but the moment it goes online, the beast awakens?Did Nintendo even know about the film before it was posted for all on the web?

There may be nothing to it, but it does appear, at least, that Nintendo doesn't have any feelers at all in the real world, while actively hunting on the web.

The thing that really gives me the shudders about this is the 1984-style public recantation: "We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself -- even from fan-works with good intentions." You can just imagine the tearful, contrite speech through broken teeth...

Personally, I think fan-art is reserved for those with little creative ability, but plenty of time and desire.

Every time I see fan-art, no matter how good, I end up asking myself "Why don't they just come up with their own works/stories/plots that don't rely on the creativity of others?". The only reason I can come up with is they are incapable.

My own daughter, a graphic artist, does the same thing. She spends hundreds of hours creating fan-art that has no possible monetary value, then complains that she ca

They took so long to enforce it as part of the agreement. If they don't enforce their trademarks, they lose them. Waiting to take it down was the best they could have done, honestly. Props for waiting.

No, it was not the best they could have done. That would have been saying "cool" and granting a free licence.

Bullshit. You can enforce your trademarks and still allow fan works. For instance, CBS allows use of Star Trek [thefreelibrary.com] properties for non-profit use. Nintendo should be encouraging their most enthusiastic fans, not threatening them with legal action.

Paramount (CBS) wasn't always like that, it took them a while to come around. There was one time where they tried to shut down all Star Trek fan sites, at least partly as a way to funnel fans to the official site, which I think was supposed to be a pay site.

I can see both sides of it, it looks to me to be a delicate balancing act.

You have no right to rip off other people's work without permission. What is an homage to one person is a horrible butchering of something they've spent years of their lives working to another.

CBS are liberal with permissions to use Star Trek stuff. Good for them. Other creators do not wish the same things of their properties. Do not confuse one group's good will with something that should be expected from everyone.

I gave to a charity the other day. You should give to them too. It's outrageous that you have yet to donate to them! If I can donate, I see no reason why you shouldn't too!

Do not confuse one group's good will with something that should be expected from everyone.

I think you're being a little bit harsh but raise a good point all the same. It would be really easy to tweak the story line and character names to come up with an original story. At least then you'd have a small but non-zero chance of being able to sell your final product.

I've seen the same thing in Star Wars fan films. Some of them are really quite good and required a huge amount of effort. Had they put that effort into an original story in a vaguely similar universe, they'd own it.

A Zelda fan might enjoy a Zelda-like story line nearly as much. You just have to invest in the back story, which you can skip in a fan film. But if you use a similar setting and environment, the history can be pretty short. A narrator can read it in if you really want to go cheap. The fans will get it. If it's too similar you could still get sued, but then it's a big corporation beating up on a bunch of poor kids. Not a bunch of poor kids encroaching on a big company's copyright.

You misunderstand the nature of "Intellectual Property" rights. It is not a "natural right" (such as the the right to bodily integrity). It is an artificial state-granted monopoly. And it's purpose is not to grant control over a person's work because they have a property claim to it. The US's IP regime exists to incentivize people to produce, because it benefits the public good. You appear to have some conception that producer's have an innate right to rigorous control over their work. This isn't how

As I recall from knowing a couple of people in the Star Trek fanzine community back in the '80s, Star Trek is a special case as far as fanfics go. It seems that Desilu didn't register the copyrights properly for the first season, so fanfics without Chekov are fair game. Or at least that's how they explained it to me.

Of course what you have linked to includes Chekov, so they couldn't use that excuse.

They killed Enterprise because the writers were so tapped for ideas that they were rehashing old Voyager scripts, that's why. Hell they would have been better off if they would have let the fans write the show. The fans couldn't have done worse, and I have read many a fan fic that was actually better than the crap the writers put out.

Trademark has absolutely nothing to do with this case, particularly considering that they avoided using any trademarks in the title.The copyright holder, or more specifically the author, needs to grant permission for derivatives. Often they will do this liberally for fans, but if it's a huge corporation and an important franchise, they will be concerned about having a negative effect.

Using a character from a series of works [fredlaw.com] is most certainly potential trademark infringement... Even if you don't register, there's an argument to be made in protecting it. But everyone and everything with a name in Nintendo's worlds is trademarked [nintendoeverything.com].

Using a character from a series infringes on copyright more than anything. By that however I mean more than just the name. The history, appearance and setting is more decisive than common christian names.Using a trademarked name within a work doesn't necessarily infringe on the trademark.

Thus I could write a crime novel in which a character appears with the name Harry Potter, as it is a common name. If I make him the main character and start promoting it with that name, I would be progressively infringing o

'Derivative work' is a term that applies entirely to copyright law. The closest analogue in trademark law is 'passing off', which is very different. Distributing a derivative work of a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright owner is copyright infringement.

You can argue that the protections of derivative works are too strong (and I would agree with you) but arguing that they don't exist is entirely wrong.

The issue isn't what the law is, it's what the law should be, as well as how companies should use the law. When there's a story about the use of the DMCA, do you go posting the text of the DMCA, saying "But that's the law!"? In yesterday's story [slashdot.org], are you going to explain what the current copyright law is, and therefore those items won't be entering the public domain today?

The owner of the copyright has the *exclusive* right to make derivative works...I realize the slashdot crowd doesn't agree with all that, but it is the existing law.

Apart from the first statement being simply untrue (there are a number of uses permitted without the copyright holder's permisssion), it is also completely irrelevant - this case is not about copyright, it's about trademarks. I know the fudmongers want us all to be seduced into the "information is property" paradigm, but copyrights and trademarks (and for that matter, patents and trade secrets) are not the same thing at all, and blurring the distinctions between them does nobody any good. Before you go berating us all in your role as AC law expert you might want to get a better understanding of the law yourself.

Even the for- or not-for-profit issue aside, Nintendo has actually apparently been pretty cool about it (so I take back my own sarcastic comment in another thread). From the movie's website: "We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film. In the spirit of the holiday season they were good enough to let us keep the movie up for you to watch and enjoy through the end of 2009, but not past 2009."

Other examples of Nintendo being cool is the way they never tried to stop

Why would Nintendo bother? They are certainly capable of writing their own stories, even ones that have extremely little content.

For example, here's the complete story for Majora's Mask:Link is looking for Navi when he gets ambushed by Skull Kid. Skull Kid steals Link's horse and Ocarina of Time, and Link is turned into a Deku Scrub. Link has 3 Days (with a Groundhog Day effect) in which to find 4 masks to stop the Skull Kid from crashing the moon into the planet.